Crop enterprise budgets are a useful tool to help you determine whether the resource and labor inputs you invest in a particular crop are generating a profit. They provide a realistic projection of the estimated yield, income, expenses, and profit for a single crop per year. They include variable costs – costs that are incurred because a farmer chooses to grow a specific crop – and fixed costs – costs that a farmer incurs whether or not a crop is grown on that piece of land.
Variable costs include things like purchasing seeds or transplants, compost or manure, mulch, fuel, the cost of running irrigation, etc. Fixed costs include machinery and equipment costs, the cost of land, and the cost of irrigation equipment. Enterprise budgets are different from a whole farm budget, which estimates total farm production, income, expenses and profit and includes things like vehicles, cold storage, packing sheds, and barns.
There are very few enterprise budgets for organic crops, particularly for fruit and vegetable crops. The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association created created these organic enterprise budgets for 10 organic fruit and vegetables, with production specific to the Carolinas, in 2019.
Downloading Organic Enterprise Budgets for Growing Common Fruit and Vegetables:
The budgets have been developed in two formats, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The ones developed in Microsoft Word provide a general overview of the costs (variable and fixed) and returns for growing an acre of that crop on a 10-acre farm.
In Microsoft Word:
- Select the budget for the crop you are interested in.
- Open the file to download and save it to your computer.
In Microsoft Excel:
Download: CFSA’s Interactive Organic Enterprise Budgets (v.2019)
- Open the Excel file and select the budget for the crop you are working with from the tabs across the bottom of the screen.
- Enter the numbers for your farm.
- Save your work to your computer.
- All values are locked, other than those entered for “Your Farm $/Ac. “.
How to Use Organic Enterprise Budgets for Growing Common Fruit and Vegetables:
Our crop enterprise budget tools come in two different formats: baseline budgets that provide an average of production costs and interactive budgets, which allow you to develop budgets specific to your operation. Good records from your own farm will result in more accurate budget projections; CFSA has compiled a list of free downloadable templates that can help you capture good records.
If you are a new grower just starting out and have not had a growing season or two to record, you can use the baseline enterprise budgets to get a good idea about how much time and money you will need, what the inputs are, and which crops might be most profitable. While you might not be growing one acre of tomatoes on a ten acre farm, a little bit of division is all you need to adjust the costs to your operation.
If you are a certified organic farmer, you can develop enterprise budgets specific to your operation to consider increasing production of profitable crops or decreasing production of less profitable crops. Comparing your budgets with our baseline budgets will also help to see if your production costs are in line with ours.
If you find your costs are much higher than those in the baseline budget, this might be a good place to develop systems to reduce those costs. You may want to track labor closely for a season to get a sense of what activities are taking the most time and if there are ways you can reduce the time spent doing those activities. For example, if you have been thinking about buying a transplanter, how much labor costs will the investment in a transplanter save in the long run?
If you are a seasoned farmer considering transitioning to certified organic, you can compare the costs and returns for organic production with your current operation. The table below compares the return above total costs from our baseline organic budgets with traditional budgets developed by Clemson University.
Developing your own crop enterprise budgets and comparing yours with the CFSA Organic Crop Budgets or the Clemson Traditional Crop Budgets will provide the information you need to know what crops to grow and how to price them in order to stay in business.
CROP | Organic Return Above Total Costs* | Non-Organic Return Above Total Costs** |
| Broccoli | $4,110.00 | NA |
| Cabbage | $9,720.00 | $2,040.53 (spring) |
| Cucumbers | $14,234.00 | $1,519.06 |
| Greens (Turnip, Mustard, Collards) | $4,863.00 | $3,063.66 |
| Irish Potatoes | $6,832.00 | NA |
| Leaf Lettuce | $2,626.00 | NA |
| Summer Squash | $113.00 | $1,369.68 |
| Sweet Potatoes | $7,738.00 | $5,732.37 |
| Tomatoes | $21,901.00 | $14,652.07 |
| Watermelon | $3,054.00 | $2,206.34 |
Comparison of return above total costs (variable costs + fixed costs – return) for organic versus non-organic fruit and vegetable crops. *Organic costs based on CFSA’s Organic Enterprise Budgets. **Non-organic costs based on Clemson Cooperative Extension’s Traditional Vegetable Budgets.
Learn more in this video with Randy James of Ohio State University about how CFSA’s organic enterprise budgets can help you predict how much you can spend on a specific crop, as well as how much you are likely to make on that crop.
Organic Enterprise budgets were created for CFSA by Randy James, Ph.D. and Kathy Folsom, Ed. and funded through a grant from Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company.
